Chinese virologist and now a COVID whistleblower, Dr. Li-Meng Yan, claims a lot of info about the origin of SARS-CoV-2. This includes her revelation that the Chinese government military lab man-made the virus. However, for some scientists, these claims cannot be used as proof. In fact, they found the research as 'damaging' and 'highly speculative.'
COVID-19 as China's man-made virus
A man wearing a face mask, following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, walks past a billboard with a map of Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, ahead of a news conference, in Ganluo county, Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan province, China September 9, 2020
On Tuesday, Sept. 14, Dr. Li-Meng Yan, a Chinese virologist, made a shocking revelation about the origin of SARS-CoV-2. Her studies conclude that a Chinese military lab under the government created the virus to target humans.
Aside from that, Li-Meng mentioned that nature could not be the main source behind the pandemic.
Comparing both coronaviruses found in nature and today's virus, she and her colleagues found unmatched results. Thus, suggesting the virus was originally man-made than nature-made.
These claims weren't 'credible' enough
The controversy that these claims have been gone through for the past weeks was very strong. In light of the speculations, few scientists from the same field expressed their opinion about the matter.
Yahoo News interviewed some scientists to know their thoughts. Interestingly, they don't bite Li-Meng's statement about the matter.
Dr Michael Head, senior research fellow in global health at the University of Southampton, clarified that these claims were already proven false from past studies.
He mentioned that these claims were more 'damaging to public health' than helping for research.
"If people are exposed to and then believe conspiracy theories, this will likely have a negative impact on efforts to keep COVID-19 cases low, and thus there will be more death and illness than there needs to be," explains him.
Another scientist Dr. Gkikas Magiorkinis, assistant professor of hygiene and epidemiology at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, repeated that enough studies were proving closely related to SARS-CoV-2 viruses came from bats and pangolins. This was said to be more likely than a laboratory manipulation.
"The paper by Li-Meng et al. does not provide any robust evidence of artificial manipulation, no statistical test of alternative hypotheses... and is highly speculative."
Meanwhile, Daniel Altmann, professor of immunology at Imperial College London, said the study is "interesting, but perhaps an outlier opinion."
China announces vaccine
A booth displaying a coronavirus vaccine candidate from Sinovac Biotech Ltd is seen at the 2020 China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS), following the COVID-19 outbreak, in Beijing, China September 5, 2020.
As China is being bashed with the COVID-19 claims, a new COVID-19 vaccine is set to be released this year made from one of their companies Sinopharm.
This vaccine already received approval from the Chinese government in June. Surprisingly, CNBC reported that the United Arab Emirates had approved the same vaccine for emergency use for its frontline workers.
This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by Jamie Pancho
